versailles // let them eat cake

happy monday!

next up on my paris re-do list was none other than my vacation home...err i mean the palace of versailles. the last time i visited my vacation home...oops, i did it again! the last time i visited versailles was during my first few days of studying abroad. i took the hour+ long train out with a few of my classmates and explored the palace. this instagram was even one of my favorites from the pre-blog days! this time around, andrea and i opted for the time efficient uber just a 30 minute ride outside of paris. we had originally planned to get there right as the gates opened with our pre-paid tickets in hand but our snooze buttons got the best of us! we headed out around 1:00pm and that was a mistake to say the least. we figured it would be crowded on the thursday we went but not as crowded as it actually was! our pre-paid tickets only saved us around 5-10 minutes but the waiting in line to get into the gates took around and hour and a half. and the photographer in me started to freak out about how much light we were actually going to have. but we definitely made it work!

once we were past the madness of the line, everything was bigger, better, and more gold than i remembered. but alas we had to wait in yet another line to go through the palace itself. thankfully andrea and i noticed that there were in fact two lines and the lengthly one was only for those who wanted the audio guide! we decided to skip the guide simply because during the million hour line, andrea and i read the entire wikipedia page about marie antoinette and louis xvi - needless to say we were pretty well versed on the hot mess that was that family.

as we walked through the palace, i was in complete awe. it will forever be unfathomable that people actually lived like this. this palace was truly the epitome of wealth and i needed to make sure that my outfit would be up to marie antoinette's standards. so naturally i wore pink! and a lot of it :)

after speeding through the palace itself, we headed out to the endless gardens to explore and make our way to marie antoinette's private palace. this was also a huge reason for me wanting to make the trek out to versailles again was because of all the times i've been there (this trip was my third) i had yet to stop at the estate of trianon. and after exploring the grounds for quite some time (and getting lost once or twice) i realized the reason i've never made it over there...it's ridiculously far away!! by this point, andrea and i were exhausted and andrea's shoes were literally falling apart. we began to wonder if it was even worth the pain. but we managed to push through...you know, for the gram.

i am so happy to report that we made it to the estate right before the sun set and within 15 minutes of the picture above, it was nearly dark outside! we needed a nap to say the least and opted for the 4€ trolley that circled the property to take us back to the entrance. luck was truly on our side because we got on the last trolley of the evening and headed back to our carriage that was waiting at the gates (aka our uber).

versailles was truly magical and i would do it again in a heartbeat! but next time, i will be sure to not hit the snooze button and spend the entire day there!